Tell us why you became a teacher

My 11th grade English teacher, who was my hero m, wrote on my biography project “I hope you consider becoming a teacher; I’d look forward to calling you a colleague.” That comment changed my life. He saw a power in me I had yet to see in myself. I try to do the same for my students too.

Tell us about your most memorable teaching experience

Sometimes small moments make the biggest impacts. I had a student write a children’s book from the perspective of a shoe. It wasn’t extraordinary by any means, but when she finished, I knelt down next to her and said “can you believe it? You wrote a book! Did you ever think you would do that?” And the sparkle in her eyes when she saw that I believed in her, that I wasn’t there to criticize but to champion her was life changing for us both. She wrote a New York Times bestseller in 2020.

What would you do with the $25,000?

Books open up the world and create more empathetic, informed readers. My intention with the 25,000 dollars is to greatly expand our library. I hope to increase our collection of books in multiple languages to accommodate the 26 different languages spoken at our school. I’d welcome the opportunity to bring in diverse authors to come and present to our school community. And I want to unify our community with a one book/one school initiative.